From Sunset to Dusk
by tinglebop
Summary: AU D/s When Dracula tries to take over New York, Hawkeye is forced to wade through some truly terrible life choices to call on the only vampire who might be able to help them save the city... But at what cost? Can his blood sucking ex be trusted? Will Coulson stake him before they find out? And does Captain America's blood really taste like sunshine and puppy dogs' love?
1. Chapter 1

A/N: In a slump with my other stuff, therefore venting with some completely random D/s OC wank. ^^v Originally meant for Loki/Barton, but it didn't fit my other AUs, so I recast. And also because Clint Barton's subby perfection should not be limited to the Marvel Universe.

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"Clint Barton. All grown up and saving the world."

The young man smiled warmly. Clint swallowed.

"Aaron," he managed to say without choking.

It was like looking at a photograph. The same eyes, nose, mouth. The same hair, even; blonde turned white in the dark. The same Westminster accent, soft but clipped through the wind so high up above the city. The same smooth, pale skin, untouched by time.

Suddenly, looking at Aaron, Clint was eighteen years old all over again. Back in that dark room, on the too soft pillows, heart rapping a tattoo against his ribs, skin tingling with anticipation. And Aaron, cool and easy, waiting patiently for the world to bend to his whims.

Clint had been the younger (he was still shorter) but it was ten years since. Now, he was easily five or six years older than Aaron looked. And he had his bow. He was an Avenger. He had fought gods and won.

All grown up and saving the world.

He should not have been gasping for breath like he'd run a marathon. His knees should not have felt weak from the sound of Aaron's voice. The sight of him strolling forwards from the precipice, the moonlight bleaching his pale eyes... the slow ripple of muscle in his exposed arms every time he moved... shouldn't have made him shiver, hands cold and clammy, heart fluttering – but it did. And he felt sick.

As if he could read Clint's mind, Aaron stopped three paces out. He held his empty palms open by his sides.

"Like you asked."

Clint could see from the tight, European cut of his dark shirt and jeans, hinting clearly at the line of muscles in his shoulders and abdomen, that he was unarmed. At least, not with a gun or a decent sized knife. Not that he was comforted by the fact.

Too late, the archer realised that he'd been staring, silent, for almost ten seconds.

"This isn't an invitation," he blurted. He avoided meeting Aaron's eyes under the cover of making sure they weren't watched. "We're only on the roof. You can't enter the building."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Aaron agreed easily.

He dropped his hands but left them visible. His gaze was soft, never lingering too long on Clint, flickering back and forth casually across the sky. The smile, of course, never wavered.

It didn't escape Clint that he was doing everything to make himself look as non-threatening as possible. No. Worse. He looked... understanding. Clint pushed down the urge to just run forward and punch him in the face.

"Are you working with Dracula?" he demanded.

Okay, so that was probably not the most subtle interrogation he'd ever carried out. Tash would probably have run headlong into a wall if she'd heard. But the silence had suddenly become too heavy and Aaron, the bastard, would never have been the one to break it. Clint remembered that much. The vampire's strategy was to stand, arms crossed, by the trapdoor until his victims walked into the noose and hanged themselves.

"No," Aaron replied lightly. "Would I be here if I were?"

Clint shrugged. "Dunno. Maybe you've gotten confused in your old age. Do vampires get Alzheimer's?"

Aaron's lips quirked up in a smirk. It was the first glimpse of the cold, cruel creature of his nightmares - and they were definitely nightmares - that Clint had seen all evening. It sent an unforgivable jolt of electricity shivering through him and he had to straighten up before his knees buckled.

"Seeing as you brought it up, why are you here?" Clint continued when Aaron didn't deign to respond. He was falling hook, line and lead-filled sinker into Aaron's trap, but he just couldn't stop himself. Every silence was a physical weight on his chest.

Aaron blinked.

"Because you called, Clint."

He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Like Clint was the moron who dialled a number and then asked who was on the phone. Which, he supposed, made a lot of sense. Except that it didn't.

"Bullshit," he spat. "This is Avengers Tower, in New York, in the middle of a hostile takeover by a fictional character. You don't like us and you don't like being in the middle of things. What's the angle?"

At length, Aaron chuckled. The he dipped his head and scuffed his toe against the ground, like a coquettish teenager admitting a crush.

"I missed you. Is that so hard to believe?"

Clint's knuckles turned white around the bow.

After a beat, Aaron went on, suddenly sober. "You never said goodbye, Clint."

And there it was. Motive.

"We're not doing this."

"You disappear one morning, not a word -"

"Was I supposed to leave a note?"

"- and then you call me, out of nowhere, a decade later, asking for my help -"

Clint could feel his face heating up. He glanced down and turned on his heel to walk away. "I get it, I shouldn't have bothered."

"- how could I not come?"

Stop. Blink.

Oh.

Clint felt his chest tighten. But for the life of him, he couldn't understand why. Aaron was lying. He was obviously lying, just trying to mess with him, so why, oh why were his eyes starting to burn?

He cleared his throat, and then shamelessly changed the topic.

"So, can you help us or not?"

As he swung back around, he looked up, lost focus for a second - and was caught suddenly looking directly into Aaron's startling blue eyes. Something in that gaze made the blood freeze in his veins. The small talk was over.

"Of course I can," Aaron obliged. Then the corners of his eyes creased and he began to advance towards Clint in slow, measured steps. "...For a price."

Clint swallowed. His stomach turned with a sudden, nauseating rush as he waited for the axe to fall.

"How much do you want? We've... got Iron Man's gold card."

His voice got smaller and smaller with every word as his neck craned slowly up until, with one final step, Aaron was close enough for him to see the stillness of his dead heart, unmoved and impassive as if to mock the deafening beat inside his own chest.

Slowly, telegraphing the move, Aaron raised a hand. But he needn't have worried; Clint's eyes were locked on his. His fingers settled on Clint's shoulder, cold, even through the shirt, and trailed down to his frantic heart. Frozen under his touch, Clint barely breathed.

"Money's boring..." Aaron drawled, and it might have been the single sexiest thing Clint had ever heard. Then the vampire brought up his other hand to settle on Clint's right arm, trailing over the hard, tetanised muscles that held the bow useless at his side. "You're on a team of superheroes. One of them must have something of value."

One of them, Clint noticed through the fog. They were the superheroes. They were valuable. Well, he thought, with a satisfaction that he wouldn't be conscious of to enjoy until much later, the bastard would just have to settle.

"Leave them." He could hardly believe his mouth was still working, the way his brain had started shutting down. Aaron's hand slid down to the trembling fist around his bow and covered it, stroking a thumb along the inside of his wrist.

"Whatever you want… take it from me." He stifled a gasp as Aaron broke his grip, sliding a finger in between his palm and the sweaty plastic, ice cold against his feverish skin. "Just me."

"Whatever I want?" Aaron repeated, low and liquid. Clint felt himself nod. The vampire took another half step forward until their bodies were flush against each other, forcing Clint to strain backwards not to break eye contact. But Aaron spared him the next moment when he turned to put his lips by Clint's ear and hum contentedly. "Whatever… I… want…"

A shuddering breath left his lips when he felt the tongue on his neck, dragging a wet stripe from shoulder to ear. He could hear and feel his own heart beat slamming into his ribs, against Aaron's palm. The distraction let Aaron worm three more fingers into Clint's death grip.

Another long, slow drag of his tongue, painting his neck with saliva that – somehow, magical spit, Clint didn't question it – tingled against his skin, turning it steadily numb, and Clint flinched so hard that Aaron managed to get his thumb in under the archer's. He hummed against the flushed skin, pressing wet, open mouthed kisses all along the length.

"Let go," Aaron murmured.

Clint realised belatedly that he had his eyes squeezed shut. His fingers twitched where he was now effectively holding Aaron's hand around the bow.

He shook his head. It was really more of a flinch, all of his energy and brain power having drained suddenly to the muscles in his right hand. It seemed petty. But he told himself it was part of the act. Aaron wouldn't believe a too swift surrender so he had to hold out, trick him into thinking he'd actually won something to gain his trust. Yeah, that was it. After all, he'd come up here knowing exactly what he was in for. Once Aaron got what he wanted, they could kill the bad guys and then everything could go back to the way it was; Clint could go back to repressing a ten year old recurring nightmare.

He definitely wasn't clinging onto the bow like the metaphorical reeds because he was scared. Terrified. That if he let go of that, he would be letting something else go, too. A distraction from everything he'd kept hidden for all these years that was now clamouring to break free.

No, it wasn't that at all.

Aaron started to open his fingers. Clint let out a pathetic sound in his throat as his grip was prised inexorably apart. A hollow, burning emptiness in his chest threatened to burst.

He swayed on his feet. It wasn't worth it, he decided. Screw Dracula, nothing was worth losing his mind like this. He was a superhero, an Avenger, fucking Hawkeye, people dressed up like him at conventions for god's sake. He didn't take shit from anyone, much less vampires who may or may not be any use at all. He was better than this. He was stronger. He wasn't eighteen anymore, goddammit, he didn't need this.

It was only when he'd started to feel dizzy that he realised he'd been gasping for air. The bow was hanging on by a wish.

"This is what I want, Clint," Aaron breathed. The hand at his chest, trapped between them, slid out to grip his shoulder tight. "Let. Go."

He was going to hyperventilate. Pressure ballooned inside him and a need he'd come so close to forgetting screamed at him to obey, let go, because it would feel so good, so right, so familiar – the warm breath at his ear, the scent that made him faint with want, the bruising hand around his arm and he wanted more, he wanted it all back –

His hand went limp. The bow fell clattering to the ground.

Aaron caught him as his legs melted.

His empty hands clawed into Aaron's arms. He was whimpering with every breath. Tears brimmed in his eyes. Unthinking, he buried his face against Aaron's neck and sucked the air into his lungs, tasting Aaron on every breath. The vampire patted his hair, hushing him softly.

"Good boy," he crooned.

Clint keened in his throat. The pressure burst inside him, white and pure and god, had he missed this. His eyes were open now, but he saw nothing. The sounds of the city below them disappeared. Even the cramp in his hand, the fatigue in his legs, everything felt dull like a woollen blanket had been thrown over the world, and the only thing left that was still real, still sharp was Aaron. His hands, voice, breath, scent, Clint's every sense was filled with nothing but him and it was so perfect, so pure, it overwhelmed him.

Who needs drugs?

He realised he was standing back on his own legs again when teeth biting into his neck brought him back to the present. Aaron bit again, hard, but without drawing blood, and Clint pulled himself closer with a gasp. The vampire lavished attention on his neck, devouring it with lips and teeth and tongue, sucking hard and then biting down until Clint flinched and groaned. Dark red bruises blossomed all over, letting Aaron taste his blood at the surface.

Taking Clint's hands, Aaron folded them behind his back, wrapping the archer in his arms as he did so. When he shifted his grip to hold both wrists in one hand, squeezing tight, Clint shuddered. He wriggled in the embrace, struggling just to feel trapped, proving that he couldn't break free, and of course, he couldn't. A hand tightened in his hair, holding him down, and his mouth fell open, panting into Aaron's shoulder, when he felt something sharper than teeth pressing against his neck. His thoughts scattered in a tidal wave of yes, yes, yes -

Tears spilled over his cheeks and he seized in Aaron's arms, muffling the cry into his shoulder, as razor edged fangs broke skin and slid smoothly into his neck.

Why had he wanted this? How had he forgotten how much it really fucking hurt to be stabbed in the neck?

"Uhngghhhh..."

Oh, right. That.

Right on the heels of agony, a white flash of burning, aching ecstasy burst in his mind. It tore like fire through his skin and flesh and sank into his bones. Clint shuddered, eyes starting open to flutter blindly before they rolled up and he melted, limp, in Aaron's arms.

The fangs withdrew slowly. But instead of pain or the cold foreign wrongness of a needle through flesh, all Clint felt was heat and friction and intimacy. And when Aaron pulled him suddenly close to suck at the wound, he felt his blood rushing past broken tissue and raw nerves in a wash of jagged pleasure. He was sure that Aaron could have bitten him to the bone, torn through his throat, and he would only have begged for more.

So of course, it was then, as Clint shivered, boneless and insensate, his blood trickling down Aaron's chin, that the metallic click of a gun cut through the air.

Coulson's voice was ever calm and affable over the wet sounds of sucking and swallowing.

"Let go of him or I blast a hole through your skull."

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Notes:

Thanks for reading! Please lemme know what you thought - especially how the OC worked out/failed.


	2. Chapter 2

The attack had come just after midnight.

In the wake of a clear, still day, the moon was a lopsided grin over a sprinkling of stars. Avenger's Tower stood a dark and jagged silhouette when, at almost precisely six o'clock, the bolt of lightning struck with a deafening clap. The next instant, black, billowing clouds appeared over the staggered peak, swallowing the moon and drenching the entire building in shadow. Home alone, deep within the bowels of their workshop, neither Tony nor Bruce noticed the stars going out above them.

Then the cloud began to simmer. Bubbling and churning, it grew thicker and thicker, hanging impossibly low and heavy, until, with a great heave, it burst into a thousand misshapen shreds that tore themselves free, to rain inky black upon the ground. Except it wasn't rain. It wasn't even hail. Whatever was falling was _huge_ and… taking _shape_… growing limbs – arms and legs and _claws _– And as the cries of the observant finally rose above the shock, the monstrous creatures spread their wings and the air was filled with a harrowing, ear-piercing shriek. The embers of a thousand glowing red eyes set the sky ablaze.

Pedestrians fled for cover, slamming into buildings and over each other. Cars jammed the streets. A man standing still in the middle of the chaos, frozen in terror, suddenly _screamed_ as a pair of grey, clawed hands tore through his back and into his chest. The scream ended abruptly as his lungs burst and, with a great beat of its wings, the creature dragged him into the sky. Even as it climbed, its bat-like face split in an ugly grin, then the creature opened its jaws and two yellow, needle pointed fangs sank into the man's neck. Blood spurted violently into the air, too fast for the beast to swallow, only to drip horrifically onto the crowds below. All around them, more people were being fished from the streets and hauled into the air.

It wasn't until one of the bodies was flung _splat_ into the kitchen window that Bruce dropped his tea and Tony finally looked up.

From five, six, seven hundred feet, the creatures drank their fill and then simply dropped the empty wrapping onto the street. Bodies crashed onto cars or shattered on the pavement, turning instantly to jam and lasagne as they burst with what little blood and fluid remained. Then they would swan dive with a discordant elegance, fold their wings and hurtle down in a perfect, aerodynamic spiral to snatch their next victims. The streets were a warzone.

Only the _whoosh _made Bruce leap out of the way before the Mark I (Gen 2) shot around the corner.

"Wait, Tony…"

It was over Tony's shoulders in an instant, hugging shut around his chest. The arc reactor flickered alight.

"Keep your shirt on, Doc." A gauntleted hand thumped Bruce's shoulder. Then the faceplate snapped shut and Iron Man's robotic voice intoned through its metal grimace, "I've got this."

A window swung open aid of Jarvis, the repulsors roared, and then Tony shot off into the sky.

…Only to immediately pull up again.

"JARVIS? What's going on?"

All the flying gargoyles had disappeared. People were shooting up from the ground by themselves. Limp corpses were floating in the air, apparently unsupported, then dropping dead without warning.

"_I'm afraid I don't know what you mean, Sir,_" and this, perhaps more than the invasion of disappearing human bats, sent Tony's blood thundering in his ears.

"Seriously, Jarv, this isn't – "

"_Tony, below you!_" Bruce screamed into his ear. "_SHOOT!_"

Tony looked down, saw nothing but air, and opened his palms. The repulsors whirred to power. There was a blood-curdling shriek from behind, and then the world was thrown sideways.

Rending metal rang in his ears. Claw marks screeched invisibly over his arm, then metal groaned and the plates split by themselves from a seam, curling back with a sputter of sparks. Pain lanced through his arm. The repulsor in his left hand flickered. His armour had seized up. Bruce and JARVIS were yelling all around him. He was falling… falling… falling…

"_Breach –_"

"_Lift the –_"

"_– destabilising –_"

"_– can't see with –_"

"_– flight systems compromised –_"

"_FLIP. YOUR. GODDAMN–_"

A shadow swept past him as he tumbled through the air, wrestling for control of his armour. When he turned to look, there were two steak knives flying directly at his face.

"JARVIS! Faceplate!"

The mask went up and the empty sky was replaced abruptly by a dripping, fang-filled, face-splitting leer through dead, grey skin and laughing red eyes… an instant before its neck burst. Thick, black blood hit Tony splat in the open eyes and mouth. Tony grabbed its face, blasted the smile through the back of its head, and watched its headless body disintegrating into dust as it fell. An engine whirred behind him – something shrieked – and then the remaining weight on his back fell away, leaving him to spring spinning into the air.

"_Flight restored_," JARVIS reported placidly._ "And you have an incoming call, sir. Private number_."

"Legolas!" Tony had to yell over the wind. Plus, he was still ineffectually wiping gunk out of his eyes with metal fingers. "Where are you, you sneaky son of a bitch?"

"_Covering your shiny red ass, Stark,_" came the sardonic reply. Something pinged off the armour, and then three gargoyles on Tony's tail fell away with salad forks in their eyes, wings flailing as they disintegrated.

Tony had time to stare before he took off into an evasive helix, trailing pursuers around the Tower.

"What happened to the bow?"

"_Stick to head shots. Decapitate or they won't stay down_," Barton ordered, ignoring the question.

"What are they, video game zombies? And who made you the expert?"

"_Just do it, Stark. Keep them busy. It'll be over in a few hours._"

"What the hell's that supposed to mean!?"

* * *

Coulson frowned down at the tablet in his hands, listening to the tiny screams breaking the sacred silence of the cockpit.

"It's trending. Hashtag _S.O.S. New York_."

May checked her instruments with a sweep of her gaze that meaningfully excluded her unnecessary co-pilot. Coulson snuck a glance, then sighed.

"I know… We have our mission." If cleaning up after Thor and the Tolkein/Lucas identity crisis could be considered a mission. Then he quirked a brief smile. "Skye threatened to take a parachute."

May spared him a sideways glare. The smile turned grim on his lips.

She was right. If it had been anywhere other than New York… but it wasn't just the city; the monsters seemed to be emanating from Avengers Tower itself, of all places… And between Stark's tech and Banner's mood, he couldn't afford to be within a hundred miles of the action. Until such time as Fury deemed fit to reveal otherwise, the coherence of the Avengers depended on his clear and present death.

"You're right," he said. "I should…" and pointed in the general direction of the briefing room – before Skye actually convinced Ward to go with her, or the glowing orb of hypothesis into which Fitz-Simmons had burst at the first mention of _invisible flying vampires_ could burn a hole through walls.

The radio crackled as he stood.

"_SHIELD 616. This is SHIELD 555 on your tail. We are clear to dock. Hold her steady and prepare to be boarded._"

The very next second, the plane shook with a groaning _clang_ from overhead. Coulson baulked. From May's expression, such as it was, she was just as surprised. But before either of them could respond, Coulson's phone rang. It was Maria Hill.

"This better be good," he intoned.

"_Fury wants you in New York._"

Okay… That was pretty good.

"Why?"

There was a terse silence on the other end. Worst-case scenarios raced through his mind. Banner had hulked out and murdered the entire city. Tony Stark was dead. The arc reactor had exploded, killing thous–

"_Barton's in the wind._"

Coulson gripped the phone hard enough to hurt his hand.

Barton had been under observation at the Sandbox ever since the Battle of New York. Psychological evaluation, the file had said, but Coulson knew it was more than that. He knew _Fury_. They weren't interested in Clint, they were interested in the sceptre. In Loki. And to the extent they did care about him, they were afraid. The Sandbox might have been conceived to foster SHIELD's greatest minds, but it was built to hold them. His escape was a terrible threat.

Maybe he was just as brilliant as Coulson had always known and just as allergic to medical attention as every SHIELD medic loathed… Or maybe…

His own saliva was thick and bitter in back of his throat when he cleared his throat, "Romanov–"

"_Not available. And neither is Morse,_" Hill pre-empted impatiently.

"_Coulson…_" she continued, and he felt the dread creeping in with every cold syllable. "_If he doesn't respond within forty-eight hours, our agents have authority to shoot on sight._"

He was up the hatch and on the other plane before May could even formulate the question.

The new pilot leaned back with a crooked smile as they disengaged from the Bus. "Sorry about the surprise, sir. The orders were –"

Coulson buckled himself in.

"Shut up and fly the plane, agent."

* * *

Hulk joined the party once local SHIELD, police and military had cleared a three block radius around Avengers Tower. But even with all three of them, it didn't seem to matter how many creatures fell with cutlery in their necks or had their heads blasted clean off or even were torn limb from limb and then ground to a fine pulp along the asphalt… the sky never seemed to clear. The dead would burst with black blood and grey flesh before turning to dust that sifted through the fingers, but more and more fell from the storm cloud over the Tower. Even Selvig's equipment, reverse engineered and miniaturised onto drones, courtesy SHIELD, had no effect on the apparent portal.

Until, as Barton had predicted, just before the sun came up. As if a whistle had sounded, every single creature dropped its prey, abandoned chase, and streaked up to disappear into the storm cloud. From the edge of the Tower, Hulk reached into the swarm and caught one in a giant green fist. The enraged bat flapped its wings desperately while trying to scratch Bruce's eyes out. Hulk snarled, then tightened his fist until bones started cracking.

"Woah, woah! I need that!" Tony shouted as he dropped down. Hawkeye came in after, a little to quickly, and jumped off before the sky-cycle lost air completely and spun, skidding, into the ledge.

"Hulk _smash_," Hulk roared into the gargoyle's face.

Tony took off the goggles he'd resorted to so the wind didn't blind him, wiped off the spray, and continued, "And we love you for it. But I need that one to say alive. So we can run some tests and work out more efficient ways to smash them later, when they come back. And I promise more will come back… Okay? Can we… get it inside?"

"You can't take it inside!" Barton interjected.

"We'll be fine, Legolas, it's three to one, how much harm could he do?"

"I mean it, Stark, you _can't_ let it in," he insisted, standing between them and the door.

"_Move_," said Hulk, brandishing his gargoyle like a weapon.

"Seriously, Barton, what's your problem?"

Clint glanced at the horizon. Dawn was already over the rooftops in the distance, giving the few wisps of cloud soft, pink underbellies and chasing away the stars.

"Look, it's... kinda weird, alright? Just… could you put it down, Hulk, before you squish it to death? It's like this…"

But as he spoke, golden light swept over them. As soon as the sunlight touched its skin, the creature screamed, beating its great wings, and burst into flame. Hulk growled in surprise and dropped it on the ground as the Avengers staggered back. In moments, it was engulfed in roaring blue flames, and with its last breath, the monster opened its terrible, fleshless jaws and shrieked.

"_Trăiască_… _DraculaaAAAHHHH!"_

There was a loud _whoosh_ of flame, and then it disappeared as if nothing had happened. All that remained was a pile of ash.

After staring in astonishment, Tony was the first to recover. He immediately rounded on Barton.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he demanded. "That was our only living sample. Now, we have nothing!"

"I was trying to save your goddamn life, Stark, don't thank me or anything," Clint snarled.

"I wasn't planning to. You were stalling, weren't you? You _knew_ it was going to burn."

"...I suspected."

"Why?"

"Because that's what happens when vampires go out in the day! Fucking hell, don't you get HBO?"

A beat. "Vampires?"

"Or… whatever," Barton backtracked. "They drank blood and they had fangs. It wasn't that hard. And you heard what it said."

Tony glared at him askance. "Yeah… no. You know something. You knew before you got here. How?"

He threw up his arms in frustration. "The same way I knew about the silver and the head shots and that they'd run before the sun came up. And I got all that stuff right, so just fucking _trust_ me, alright?"

Tony backed off slightly, considering. Then, lowering his voice, he asked, "Is it Loki? Is that how you–"

The point of a steak knife was an inch from his left eyeball before he could finish the word. Tony started to lift his hand, and the gap went down to half an inch. Behind him, Hulk stomped forward with a terrifying snarl, but Clint didn't even twitch.

"Easy…!" Tony held up a hand behind him while the rest of him remained very, very still. In the back of his mind, he was doing the sums: the faceplate would take almost an entire second to lower, in which time Barton would shove the knife in, then the mask would knock the blade down, levering it up inside his skull, and then – "Easy, buddy… I'm okay… We're okay. No smashing needed."

Hulk huffed, unconvinced.

"…_Are_ we okay, Barton? Because I don't mean to brag, but snow pea back there, he's getting kind of attached to me, so if you poke my eye out, he might not take it very well… I'm just saying…"

Clint glared the skin off his flesh, knuckles white around the handle. But the knife stayed still. Then, after countless thundering heartbeats that Tony could feel echoing off the inside of the armour, he pulled back. The knife fell with a clang. He was breathing hard.

The armour whirred in relief as Tony relaxed. Hulk held out a single finger to push him upright when he threatened to topple backwards. Tony slapped him on the arm.

"See, jelly bean? I told you. 'S'all good."

Then, once the armour had peeled itself off and flown home, he sat down next to Hulk's green feet and patted the ground beside him, grinning. After a considering glare, Hulk grunted, swayed, and then shrank, joints popping, bones groaning, back into Bruce. The storm cloud over Stark Tower had cleared as immaculately as it appeared, and now the sunlight cut blindingly across their eyes, throwing long shadows. Clint stood frowning at the small mound of dust as it dissipated slowly on the wind.

"I knew a guy," he said, at last, meeting Tony's eyes. "That's all. It wasn't…"

Tony nodded. "Fair enough."

"So… Dracula, huhn?" Bruce sighed, holding his ripped jeans and pulling his knees to his chest. "Better or worse than aliens, do you think?"

Stretching out flat on his back, Tony crossed his ankles over Bruce's knees like the world's leading expert on gamma radiation was an ottoman. Surprisingly, after one non-committal wiggle, the world's leading expert on gamma radiation leaned back and then didn't seem to mind.

"New Mexico, New York, and now New York again," Tony counted off on his fingers. "Ten bucks says Jersey's next." He flapped a hand in Barton's general direction when the archer started walking back to his sky-cycle. "Leave it. It's not like anyone's gonna steal it from up here. D'you disable the tracking?"

Clint turned around with his eyebrows raised.

"Eh?"

Exchanging a sceptical look with his footrest, Tony propped himself up on his elbows – regretted immediately when hard concrete met bony joint, and pushed onto his palms instead.

"The logo's been painted over. It was obviously hotwired. And whatever you did to kill the remote control's ruined your braking," he explained. "You stole it."

"Actually–"

"Which _means_, you're on the run," he continued merrily through the interruption. "Which means, you should let me have a look at it before Fury's eye patch falls out of the sky and smites us all." Then he collapsed onto his back again and threw an arm over his eyes. "Meantime, you can have a look at your floor. I need your input on the colour scheme."

Clint stared.

"… My what?"

Bruce swatted Tony's shoe that was bobbing restlessly right in his eye line.

"I told you it wasn't normal," he said, before breaking off into a wide yawn.

"Who wants to be normal?" Tony retorted. Then he got to his feet and dragged Bruce up with him. "I need a drink. And a shower. Coming, Katniss?"

Clint watched Stark and Banner's retreating backs with a touch of incredulity as they went casually inside on the assumption he would follow. On the assumption he wouldn't gut them when they weren't looking, despite the stupid shit he'd just pulled.

"Yeah, sure," he replied belatedly. "I just… need to make a call, first."


	3. Chapter 3

Clint tasted first of the city, whatever the city. In New York, it was petrol, smoke and nameless strangers. Bitter and loud and _impure_ like the clamouring tar of burnt coffee through a plastic lid.

But underneath all that, clean and searing hot, he tasted of salt. It danced on the tip of Aaron's tongue, with a sharp, tingling effervescence. Skin and sweat laced with tangy, metal overtones of gunpowder – undertones of blood, filling his capillaries, making him blush over the quickening throb of his pulse.

And when he finally bled, when he was filling Aaron's mouth, spilling past his lips and staining his collar, he was milk and honey and golden barley.

On the outside, Barton was near unrecognisable. His soft blonde hair was brown now, and shorter than could be twisted between Aaron's fingers. His skin was darker and rougher for long exposure in the wind and sun, calloused on his palms. Scars marred his back and shoulders under Aaron's fingertips where before he had been unblemished.

And he'd _grown_, hardened with steely muscles that rippled under the skin. But all of that strength had given way. Older and wiser and deadlier, Clint had still sunk crashing into his arms, overcome by a desperate, vacuous need that could have swallowed him whole. Better yet, when Aaron reached into Clint's mind, crawling along his nerves and submerging himself in a lake of borrowed sensation, he felt every ebb and flow of ecstasy as if it were his own, saw the world in florid bursts of colour at each fresh sensation, and basked in the sheer violence with which Barton craved his touch... He would happily have drowned in those waters.

Sliding one hand down the back of Barton's shirt, Aaron dug his claws into the skin of his back. The archer tensed with a gasp. His neck arched as Aaron gouged bloody lines up his back and over his shoulder, spilling blood just to feel it well hot and sticky at his fingertips and let the scent fill the air. Aaron chased the wound from the dip of Barton's collarbone and up his shoulder to as far down his shirt as his tongue could reach. His own filthy moan echoed in Barton's ears, sending little frissons of pride along the archer's skin.

The pain barely touched him as he floated ever higher into the seductive haze of desire, holding him cocooned in its still, quiet warmth.

It was into this haze that Coulson intruded. His foreign warmth flickered noisily in the corner of Aaron's senses like a reflection off some unseen watch face, more irritating the closer he crept. His footsteps grated like the obnoxious, open-mouthed chewing of cornflakes.

"Let go of him or I blast a hole through your skull."

Aaron buried his nose into Clint's bloody neck and breathed him in, trying to drown out the noise.

* * *

From somewhere up in the clouds, Clint thought he heard a familiar voice.

"You have three seconds."

_Hawkeye, _he wondered, hanging loosely to whatever bare thread of consciousness still bound him to Earth. He'd definitely heard that before, in that voice. But… closer. Much closer.

_Hawkeye_, said the voice, _in his ear, over static. _

_Over screaming and gunfire._

_In the dark and quiet…_

A man, he remembered. A man in a suit. _Always _a suit. The thought made him want to smile. He felt a tug against the thread and turned to face the rain, blurring his vi– sun, cold light through white clouds in a robin's egg sk– _rain_. Sheets of water fell in front of him, hitting the tops of black umbrellas without a sound. Grey skies filled with

clouds, anyway.

"Three."

There were white lilies in his hands – white roses with long stalks and – _white flowers_ by a gravestone with a blank, granite face. He squinted, but everything was soft-focus and blurred at the edges, as if looking through fogged glass. The gravestone was

steel grey and sectioned like a beehive, bound at head height by a continuous line of mirror (not to fool him, to hide the watchers), broken only by a door that couldn't be locked from the inside. This much was sharp.

A tug on the thread yanked him out of the room.

_Barton, _said the man in the suit with the soft voice, rough hands – with a spear through his heart. lungs. left lung. pleura then lung then heart then ribs – skin – shirt. White shirt. His blood oozing like a rosebud blossoming in snow

gushing from a still beating heart, gallons and gallons soaking his white shirt, running over his hands and onto the floor until it was slippery and black.

_Clint, _he said, eyes fading, lips white,

three black arrows in his chest.

A cold draught scattered the cloud around him. Faltering, Clint grabbed for the air, feeling himself start to fall, stomach leaping into his throat, skin turning cold, and the white glow was fading, turning dark, he could hear the wind whistling past his ears…

"Two."

_…__Coulson? _

His hands twitched behind him. His heart was thundering against his chest. He was starting to pant into Aaron's shoulder, the coppery scent of blood burning down the back of his throat. His eyes fluttered, trying to open.

"…Phil," he slurred.

* * *

_Enough._

* * *

"One."

Coulson had his finger was flush against the trigger, pulse throbbing against the skin, ready to squeeze on the exhale…

Then the vampire snapped its fingers and Clint collapsed like a broken marionette. He caught him under the waist, saving his neck as it whipped backwards, mouth falling open with a soft gasp. He hoisted Clint up to hold him like a sleeping child, all two hundred-some-odd pounds of muscle and sass hugged to his chest like he was made of air.

A pair of glowing red eyes stopped Coulson dead in his tracks – he'd taken three stumbling steps forward before even realising it. Then, holding his gaze, the vampire began to lower himself slowly to his knees. Coulson followed them disbelievingly over the sights. He watched the slow rise and fall of Clint's chest as he slept. One arm hung slack at his side, individual fingers quivering sporadically. His face was turned away, buried in Aaron's chest. Purposely or not, the vampire was hiding the bleeding side of his neck.

When they'd settled on the ground, the vampire murmured something into Clint's ear. With a groan of effort, Barton pulled his legs under himself to kneel upright, but then buried his face in the vampire's shoulder, grabbing weakly at his shirt.

"Hush…" whispered the monster, and pressed his bloody lips to Barton's hair.

Then, plucking the clinging hands loose, he stood up. His lips were dark and glossy with blood. The ends of his hair were sticky with it and there was a smudge on the tip of his nose. His fingers were black under the nails. But he was pale the way humans were pale, not grey like the gargoyles splashed all over the Internet. There were no wings, no claws. Even the red in his eyes was beginning to fade. He pulled up the hem of his shirt to wipe his mouth and chin, tongue flicking out to wet the drying blood.

A small whimper made him glance down. Clint had wrapped one arm around his shins while the other held resolutely onto three of his fingers, resisting every attempt to shake them loose. His cheek rested warmly against a hip. The vampire ran fingertips through his hair and smiled as the archer sighed.

When he looked back up, his eyes were ice blue around enormous black pupils.

_What now? _they seemed to say.

"Thank you," Coulson replied, and squeezed the trigger.


End file.
